​Dr. Yacoobi Private Schools

Dr. Sakena Yacoobi has been working with Afghans for decades and believes in the goal of self-sufficiency for Afghan individuals,communities and institutions. She has developed a program building private enterprises in Afghanistan that develop and improve the education and health systems in the country. Dr. Yacoobi has established:​four private schoolsprivate radio stationprivate hospital.​

The schools and hospital have now become self-sufficient. The hospital is now an independent institution. Radio Meraj, started in 2015, is already one of the top 2 radio stations in Herat and has begun attracting advertising as it moves to self-sufficiency. ​​​

​​The Professor Sakena Yacoobi Private Schools are in Herat and Kabul and are based on the Profit for Non-Profit model in which the tuition paid by students who can afford it helps to support students who cannot.These schools are financially self-sufficient and able to offer scholarships. CHI's support includes providing scholarships. In addition, some of the schools permit Dr. Yacoobi's NGO, the Afghan Institute of Learning to operate Learning Centers in their facilities so that students who are not school-aged or are married, can take classes and gain literacy and numeracy and acquire job skills. These private schools are of great importance as there are not enough high quality schools to give all students a place.​

Professor Sakena Yacoobi High School , Herat won first place in the girls 2017 Technovation Challenge competition in Afghanistan creating mobile phone applications.This program is sponsored in the school by AIL and one of the school's all girl teams beat 36 other teams from Afghanistan with their literacy app, Amozgar. They worked on this project for 3 months creating an app with the alphabet with audio and words and sentences. Their message, “With Amozgar we change homes into schools.”The team and their app competed in the semi- final round of judging with 100 teams from around the world, but did not make it to the final.​

Leadership Project Afghan Institute of Learning supports a program at the Yacoobi High School in Herat called the Leadership Project.This program in now running its second class in which 30 students (15 female) are chosen to attend a two year training in leadership. They study many subjects including human rights, English, how to be a leader, how to conduct discussions, management, racial discrimination, peace, transformation leadership, transaction leadership and social and societal issues. In addition to study, the group also go on visits to government and organization sites and conduct community work such as environmental clean up, greening projects and outreach to hospital patients. ​

The 2016 graduate class went onto to set up a Student Parliament at the school conducting election campaigns, voting and now have elected parliament members engaged in student relations, student/staff matters and working on ways to improve the learning environment. This helps students remain in engaged in political and social issues and actions, learning to express their opinions and work towards a better functioning society whether that be in their community, school or city.

Dr. Yacoobi's Afghan Institute of Learning

The Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL) has always sought to charge some sort of fee for its services so as not to perpetuate an attitude of entitlement and to encourage self-reliance in people. In some instances, fee charging has not been possible because of government regulations. AIL’s approach to its project startups includes the requirement that communities contribute something - not necessarily money - but land or supplies or a building. Again this approach seeks to engage the people and create a sense of ownership and responsibility which means projects are valued and nurtured and protected – a recipe for success and longevity.